e not fifty millions. How many in England?
Where are the four hundred millions found? To make this immense
number, they have counted all the Heretics, all the Catholics, all
the Jews, Spiritualists, Universalists and Unitarians, all the
babes, all the idiotic and insane, all the Infidels, all the
scientists, all the unbelievers. As a matter of fact, they have
no right to count any except the orthodox members of the orthodox
churches. There may be more "members" now than formerly, and this
increase of members is due to a decrease of religion. Thousands
of members are only nominal Christians, wearing the old uniform
simply because they do not wish to be charged with desertion. The
church, too, is a kind of social institution, a club with a creed
instead of by-laws, and the creed is never defended unless attacked
by an outsider. No objection is made to the minister because he
is liberal, if he says nothing about it in his pulpit. A man like
Mr. Beecher draws a congregation, not because he is a Christian,
but because he is a genius; not because he is orthodox, but because
he has something to say. He is an intellectual athlete. He is
full of pathos and poetry. He has more description than divinity;
more charity than creed, and altogether more common sense than
theology. For these reasons thousands of people love to hear him.
On the other hand, there are many people who have a morbid desire
for the abnormal--for intellectual deformities--for thoughts that
have two heads. This accounts for the success of some of Mr.
Beecher's rivals.

Christians claim that success is a test of truth. Has any church
succeeded as well as the Catholic? Was the tragedy of the Garden
of Eden a success? Who succeeded there? The last best thought is
not a success, if you mean that only that is a success which has
succeeded, and if you mean by succeeding, that it has won the assent
of the majority. Besides there is no time fixed for the test. Is
that true which succeeds to-day, or next year, or in the next
century? Once the Copernican system was not a success. There is
no time fixed. The result is that we have to wait. A thing to
exist at all has to be, to a certain extent, a success. A thing
cannot even die without having been a success. It certainly
succeeded enough to have life. Presbyterians should remember,
while arguing the majority argument, and the success argument, that
there are far more Catholics than Protestants